Founded in 1953 by Dr. Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon — two men with a deep interest in music and the arts — the company helped create the high-fidelity audio industry. Their first product was an FM tuner. One year after its founding, Harman Kardon introduced the world's first true high-fidelity receiver, the Festival D1000. This monaural unit was not only aimed at non-technical consumers but also incorporated many now-familiar features such as a tuner, component control unit and amplifier on a single chassis. In 1958, Harman Kardon introduced the world's first stereo receiver, the Festival TA230, once again aimed at non-technical users in an attempt to make high-fidelity widely available. Stereo sound was achieved by using one channel from the AM band, and one channel from the FM band. The first true FM Multiplex Stereo Receiver was sold by HH Scott in 1961 with introduction of the Model 350 tuner.

Citation XX

In the late 1970s, the Harman Kardon Citation XX power amplifier was called "the world's best-sounding power amplifier" by the editors of The Audio Critic, a magazine published in the USA. The amplifier was designed by Dr. Matti Otala who discovered transient intermodulation distortion (TIM) in 1970 and worked to mitigate its effects in the following years. The Citation XX was an at-any-cost...Read More